Originally Posted by
pilot_tolip
Who's got any real world experience with in-flight hydraulic failure?
Had hydraulic failure in an Astar in an out of ground effect hover at 1,000', me plus 6 passengers over Napali coast in Hawaii back in 2002. 27nm from Lihue airport. Had the front seat pax hold the pressure on the cyclic to save my arm strength for the landing 30 minutes later. I did tell my pax what was happening, (kinda hard to hide when the horn goes off for 25 seconds). Flew back, did shallow approach to a "slow" quick stop flare to the ground. Not a huge deal---just do what you do in training. Mine was caused by the failure of the A/C belt which then took out the hydraulic belt.
Take aways: Always declare an emergency as you will get priority handling and always take it to a hard surface so the skids can slide if needed without digging in---I touched down from a hover--but I have been trained to do that.